


Coffeeshops, Courts and You: How to Make Friends and Influence Enemies as a Barista.

by heartfell_heartsworn (saint_etzer), saint_etzer



Series: Coffeeshops, Courts and You [1]
Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: (but not really cuz this coffee shop is canon), Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Art, Book 2: The Wicked King, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Illustrations, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, Spoilers for Book 2: The Wicked King
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2019-10-13 02:30:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 19,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17479517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saint_etzer/pseuds/heartfell_heartsworn, https://archiveofourown.org/users/saint_etzer/pseuds/saint_etzer
Summary: “Do you think I could put ‘Queen of Faerie’ as a job title?”Jude's not adjusting to the mortal world well. When Vivi pushes her into a job at a new coffee shop, Moon in a Cup, she finds that Faerie has a way of seeping into the mortal world where she'd least expect it and allies are found in the oddest of places. With Elfhame and her family threatened by all-too-familiar enemies, she must regain her mantle as the Queen of Elfhame - just maybe not the way she expected.Meanwhile, back in Elfhame, the Bomb sets about finding answers of her own. Though she deals in chemicals, she finds that she's a catalyst all by herself.





	1. Drip Coffee

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written fanfic before, so this is new and exciting! I have a lot of feelings about Kaye/Roiben and Jude/Cardan so I figured I'd just throw them both together! I'm altering/ignoring a bit of canon lore for the sake of flexibility but I'm gonna try and stay as true as I can be to character motivations. And yes, this will eventually have happy fluffy jurden feels because god do i need that in my life right now, you just gotta have patience and stick with me until we get there. it won't take much longer!

As it turns out, expert swordsmanship is not a skill one places on a resume. None of my skills would place high on a resume. I stare down at the blinking cursor on my computer screen, the boxes of the premade resume template woefully empty. How does one turn a short stint as a spymaster and seneschal into a marketable skill, summed up in 15-or-less active verbs and attractive adverbs? 

“How’s it going?” Vivi leans over my shoulder, letting out a little wince of a sound at the sight of the resume. I hadn’t even heard her come out of her room. 

On the resume, I had only filled out my name. I hardly recognize it in the utilitarian font, a far cry from the intricate, graceful signatures and flourishes I was used to at the court. That is not my name. It’s the name of Jude Duarte, but it’s not my name. 

“Do you think I could put ‘Queen of Faerie’ as a job title?” I try to force a light tone into my voice as I glance back over the edge of the shabby, soft couch, but it’s a far cry from Vivi’s easy sarcasm. I just sound angry and bitter, even to my own ears. 

Vivi takes a long sip from her drink, the smell of coffee wafting through the air, filling the small apartment. It elbows out the burnt-breakfast stench from Oak’s ‘experiments’ earlier in the morning, before he was carted off to school. “Could be a funny conversation starter, if you ever got to an interview. I’ve heard that it’s important to make a resume that stands out.”

“How would you know? You’ve never-” I cut myself off, turning back to look down at the pathetic, electronic paper. I know it’s not Vivi’s fault. None of this is her fault; not that she’s never had to find a job, not that she never was banished from home, not that she was betrayed by her family. She’s the one member of my family - other than Oak, of course - that hasn’t betrayed me. She gave me a place to stay, time to recover, time to scheme. She waited until I finally clawed out from under the weighted blanket of apathy a week or so ago, the anger replacing the hurt. 

But with my return to life, as Vivi so dramatically claimed, was a return to obligations. New ones; no more was I to serve the whims of kings and courts, forever banished from the lands I had spilt so much blood for, my own and others. No, now I had to serve the whims of capitalism. Or, as Vivi had put it, find something to fill my day with. It wasn’t healthy to sit and brood all day, apparently. I wouldn’t know. I may have been born in this world, but I belonged to it no more than a fae changeling would belong to only one realm. I don’t even have a G.E.D.

“Hey.” Vivi nudges my head with her elbow. “I know it’s not fair. None of this is fair. But if you shut yourself up in here, you’ll go as mad as Val Moren.” 

The reminder of the other human seneschal sends a cold, thorny twist into my midsection. I let the discomfort sit there, the reminder that we were both ruined by the fae courts. I let it fester. I need all the anger I can get, if I’m ever to face - and deface - the miserable excuse of a King I made. The twisting, stabbing sensation creeps up to my chest at the thought of Cardan, the last things I saw of him; standing, exultant, triumphant, on the land he had wrested from the sea.

But with so little family left on my side, I resign myself to humoring Vivi. It’s the least I can do.   
“I know. I’m - I’ll find something. I’ll get out of your hair.” I close the lid of the cracked laptop as I speak. Vivi takes another sip of her coffee. The smell is distracting - it doesn’t smell like the normal, over-burnt fare that she brings back from the mall. There’s something to it that I can’t shake.

Before I can dwell on it further, Vivi’s shoved a piece of paper at me. “Picked this up and filled it out for you. Your job is to go drop it off, or risk my wrath.” She delivers her threat with an easy smile, but I don’t want to risk it anyhow. 

I stand, setting the laptop on the coffee table and scan down the sheet of paper. It’s an application for some coffeehouse, a stylized logo in the top left corner of a crescent moon resting, half-tipped out of a coffee mug. There’s a little winged figure dangling from the edge, like an altered Dreamworks logo. I’ve watched enough of Oak’s movies in my hiatus here to know that much.

“Moon in a Cup? What is this?”, I ask, looking over at her. The logo on Vivi’s coffee cup is the same. I know my tone is derisive, but I can’t help it. Why would she expect me to be able to work at a coffee shop? I know next to nothing about coffee, barely anything more about the human world and can hardly stand the idea of dealing with deluges of desperate human customers. And though I don’t want to admit it - won’t admit it to her - a small part of me prickles at having been brought so low. Once I was the Seneschal of Elfhame.

Now, apparently, I’m to make foamy hearts in overpriced sludge. 

“It’s a great local place. Pretty new. Trust me, you’ll love it - I have friends that go there, like, all the time.”

I push down the bitterness threatening to overwhelm me and fold the application - already filled out in Vivi’s scratchy hand - up and into my pocket. “Alright. I’ll drop this off - “

“-Now.” She cuts me off, gently pushing me towards the door. I don’t have the energy to disagree. I don’t want to think about how my apathy, my lethargy reminds me of someone else - the idea that his listlessness might have rubbed off on me. I don’t want to think of him at all. I’ll take foamy hearts over that any day.


	2. Reflection: Breakfast Blend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back in Elfhame, the Bomb reflects on the changes since Jude's departure - and what exactly she should do about it.

It was always funny, the Bomb thought, about how quick things turned into jokes in a court. Not quite true jokes, no. Jokes always had a seed of something humorous, even if the seed was rotten and dirty. But this matter was funny in an entirely different sort of way - the way that twisted your insides and made your tongue taste sour. She sat leaned against a table, with nothing better to do than to spin her thoughts into circles and circles. 

After Jude (Kingmaker, Spymaster, Seneschal - she had a nifty habit of collecting names, didn’t she?) was thrown out of the realm, after she was shamed in front of the guards and all of Orlagh’s sorts, it had taken very little time for her parting words to turn into something of greatest humor. The Queen of Faerie, people tittered about, hiding behind fans made out of segmented dragonfly wings as they vied for the High King's magnanimous attention. Can you believe that? Maybe addled Seneschals ran in the family blood line. Better for the High King to have gotten rid of the upstart, wasn’t it? Disgraceful, having a creature of dirt and decay standing even so close to the throne. Things would be different now, with such a powerful, young, virile High King on the throne.

The worst part, the Bomb reasoned to herself as she gathered up her various vials, sorting through them from smallest to biggest for lack of anything better to do, was how quickly the High King had joined in on the fun. He laughed with the rest of them, joked about how he must tone down the revels as he was a claimed man now, how he couldn’t be caught with any beauties in his bed else his fearsome human wife turn up and thrash him. That joke resulted in a bit of nervous laughter from the gathered gentry. They weren’t so quick to forget how easily Jude (lovely, daring, stupid Jude) had thrashed Balekin. Well. Killed Balekin, really. A thrashing’s just a stop on the road to a killing. 

She didn’t understand it at all. All of this - the sudden banishment of Jude, the departure of Madoc with the army (if she thought too long on that it terrified her, so she decided not to), Cardan’s too-glib moods, easy laughter and his avoidance of both her and the Roach. Elfhame was odd, now; the weather ran stronger, the sun brighter, the moon seemed to hang like a too-heavy pendulum swinging across the night sky. Everything was more, and everything was a bit more worrisome, as if at any moment a storm might crack across the sky. She knew the Roach wasn’t one big on plans, but something needed to be done. The Ghost was still out there in desperate need of a final thrashing himself, Jude was cast aside like dirty laundry and she was stuck here, without a dear friend and without a direction to throw her bombs. And that wouldn’t do at all. 

The Bomb finished sorting her vials on the table and slotted them into the bandolier slung across her chest, threw on a simple woven poncho over it all, pulled up her hood and started out into the hall. If Jude was here, she reasoned, she’d just go straight to the King and demand answers. And while she knew that her and Jude were two very, very different people, Jude always seemed to get results. So maybe, she’d get results this way too. What’s the worst that could happen, anyhow?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's not a proper chapter 2, but I wanted to throw up something quick while I work on it!


	3. Red Eye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jude drops off her application at Moon in a Cup and runs into a couple of not-so-friendly old friends.

I squint up at the hanging wooden sign, the brisk breeze cutting through my shabby, borrowed coat. The logo’s the same, somehow battered and weather-worn despite Vivi’s insistence that this place was new. Vivi never had the best grasp of time, so for her new could be anywhere from a week ago to five years old. 

Even from out here, I can taste the magic wafting out of the small coffee shop. That explains why Vivi’s so fond of it - she’s found one of the rare, scattered establishments that cater to humans and faerie alike. I’m banished from Elfhame, but there’s no prohibitions against me participating in faerie altogether, right? 

That’s what I tell myself as I push open the door, the tinkling of the bell above the frame giving me a half-second to prepare for the onslaught of smells and sights and sounds. Espresso mixes with the sweet glimmer of magic in the air, the walls are covered with the most eclectic and mish-mashed group of art I’ve ever seen and if I’m not mistaken, that’s faerie-fruit scones just sitting pretty in the pastry case. 

The chalkboard menus hanging up on the wall behind the counter list all sorts of strange drinks and pastries, but I have a sneaking suspicion that at least half of them aren’t fit for human consumption. I see the same odd, little painted bugs on so many things. Maybe it’s their version of a mascot? There’s not many souls in the shop. I cast a glance back to read the hours chalk-marker-painted on the glass of the door. Right. There’s not many souls in the shop because I arrived almost at closing.

I turn back and force myself to walk through the shop, unsure why my limbs feel so heavy and my mouth feels so dry. It’s similar to how I felt before meeting with the council in the early days of Cardan’s rule, when I had to go hold my ground via verbal sparring. Even here, in the mortal realm, fear is never far away.

There’s a lanky, ginger boy behind the counter, head bent down and reading something off of his phone. I gently rap on the wooden surface, causing him to startle and look up. He blinks at me, rubs his eyes, and asks, “Can I get you anything?”

“Uh...” I look down at the application in my hands. I set it up on the counter. “I’m here to apply...?” Is this how you do things here? I feel like a child, bumbling around until I just happen to run into the right thing. 

“...What?” He straightens up and pockets his phone. He takes the application, unfolds it and scans down the filled-out boxes. “I didn’t think we were hiring. Where’d you get this from?”

“My sister, uh - Vivienne?” This was a bad idea. Maybe Vivi had just made up an application to get me out of the house, and I’ll be the one stuck looking like an idiot. I step away from the counter, already regretting coming here at all. “Sorry, I just assumed-”

“Maybe Kaye gave it to her?” He muses, turning over the piece of paper as if expecting some mystery to reveal itself on the backside. My thoughts come to a halt. Kaye. Faerie coffee shop. The bugs - no, the termites. I can feel my heart sinking into the pit of my stomach as a voice rings out from behind me, further back into the shop. 

“I sure as hell didn’t give out any applications, and even if I did I’d never give one to her.” It’s amazing how much derision can fit into such a small pixie’s voice. As much as I want to stare down into the grain of the wood counter and disappear into its whorls and pits, I force myself to turn. I’m sick of hiding. The least I can do is face my mistakes. 

Kaye - consort to the Lord of Termites, changeling and terror in her own right - stares back at me. Her arms are crossed over her chest, one arm bound up in bandages that continue all the way up to her neck, even covering half of her face. Dulcamara’s words echo back to me - how Orlagh’s troops attacked the Court of Termites with full permission from the High King, in return for my safe return. How Lord Roiben’s consort was hurt. How I should hope and wish that she makes a full recovery.

And of course, trouble never comes in ones for me. A figure looms out of the shadows behind her, his salt-white hair a cruel cousin of the Bomb’s halo of white. He stares down at me, an odd look on his face. Surprise, maybe, as if me crawling here is akin to a suicide mission. They’re both in mortal clothes, some intelligible metal band’s logo spread out in stick-like white letters across his black shirt, completely at odds with Kaye’s faded, rainbow t-shirt.

I swallow, any words to say thick in my throat. She’s made a recovery to be sure, but maybe not a full one yet. But at this moment, with her teardrop eyes boring a hole through me and Roiben glowering down like a shade of the night, I’m far more concerned for my own health.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaAAAND here we go!! getting into the fun stuff. thank you everyone who kudos/comments, it warms my heart and makes me so excited to work on further chapters!


	4. Flat White

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jude's never met a problem that hitting it with sticks couldn't solve. Neither has Lord Roiben. Kaye and Corny remain unconvinced.

The man - Corny, I correct - looks back to me. His brows are furrowed. “What’d you fuck up?”

“I...” My words dry up in my throat. I swallow. I have no silver tongue. I don’t even have a bronze tongue. Iron, maybe, to match the dirt of my blood. If Cardan was here - 

I cut that thought off before it can grow into something more, but the damage’s done. That familiar hatred at the mere thought of Cardan coils up in my gut, turning my thoughts tinged red.

“Jude Duarte here bound our court to Elfhame, and is the one which the High King bartered for,” Roiben adds. 

Corny looks at me with a new light in his eyes. “Oh, shit. You’re the reason why-”

“Why I couldn’t walk for a week!” Kaye cuts in, stalking forward. She doesn’t come past my chin, but that doesn’t stop me from taking a half step back. “You’re the reason why tons of people - our people - were killed in their beds!”

“It was hardly a personal failing, Kaye,” Roiben adds in a mild tone. “The Crown itself failed its people. She at least repaid the debt in blood.” 

“She didn’t repay anything!” Kaye turns her glare back towards Roiben. To his credit, he shrinks back a bit as well. “Balekin only died ‘cause he started some duel! If she knew it would’ve gotten her kicked out, she never would’ve killed him!”

They are not wrong. Standing there, with my hands clenching and unclenching into fists, I know they are not wrong. The Crown did fail its people. It was because of my mistake, of being caught alone with the Ghost. It was because of Cardan’s inability to rule with the full power of the High Ruler locked behind our deal. It was because he needed to be released, to claim his power and to cast me off for good.

And even though I know that our marriage was nothing but a ploy for Cardan to shed his bonds and turn the tables back on me, the knowledge that I am still Queen of Faerie, that I still have a claim to the land and to its power, burns deep within me. I cannot take a slight against the Crown like that, even if I would throw a thousand such slights against Cardan and all he brings to his side. In the small part of my brain not consumed with anger, I think that it is a bit like Taryn - I could tease her all I like, but as soon as another soul dared to snip at her they would have hell to answer for. Taryn and I were family, and an insult against her was an insult against me, too. Any insult against the Crown is now the same.

My voice is slow but measured, even though I have no idea what I’m doing. “I have suffered enough at the hands and words of the Fae. If you continue to make such claims, I will make a claim for my own honor in return.”

Now all three of them are looking at me. The apathy of weeks past is being burned away by something far more familiar. My hands ball into fists as I meet first Kaye, then Roiben’s stares. I feel, acutely, the absence of Nightfell.

“...What?” Kaye’s tone is still sharp, but there’s a hint of bewilderment to it. She squints at me, as if trying to figure out if I’m a threat. I know I still am. I hope I still am. Fishsticks and ice cream hasn’t ruined years of training, right?

Roiben gives me that odd stare again. Sorts like him I am used to, even while Kaye confuses me. The sorts which operate on honor and dignity and have no time for the revels and guile of a court. Madoc’s sort, though I doubt that Roiben has the same thirst for blood. 

His tone is still mild. “A duel. You wish for a duel, to repay the insults thrown at your feet.”

“Said insults were as good as a glove.” I fight to keep my tone even, though the words alone send a thrill through me. I am not made to lay about and languish. I hadn’t realized how much I thirsted for combat before now, now that the chance is presented to me. “Tell me one reason why I should fetter myself for the good of others. Where has that gotten me?”

“Very well.” Roiben gives me a nod. “Though Kaye traded in much of the insults, I will answer on her behalf, as she is still wounded.” 

“What?” Kaye and Corny chime in in unison, with Corny taking the lead. “You’re not really going to fight this random chick, right?” 

“She has every right to call for a duel. I have every right to accept it. I daresay a bit of sword play might help rid us of this foul miasma.” Roiben turns, beckoning me through the back of the coffee shop and towards, as I soon see, the back courtyard. Corny and Kaye filter behind us, with Corny sprinting to flip the sign on the front door from ‘OPEN’ to ‘CLOSED’ first. 

The courtyard is a small thing, just a spot of cobblestones and mismatched tables nestled between the buildings all around. There’s a multitude of planters on all sides of the courtyards, their oversized blossoms and delicate leaves a clear response to magic. It’s quiet. Homey. It’s like nothing I’m used to.

As I stand and take it in, Roiben gets to clearing a spot in the middle. He easily lifts and sets aside the various tables, placing them down with the utmost gentleness. Corny joins me, pulling in heaving breaths as he presents a sword nestled in its sheath. I give both him and the sword a look, unsure who’s side he’s on.

“It’s for -- It’s a real sword, honest! Someone left it behind weeks ago and we never got around to getting rid of it.” He wheezes out the words, an excited light in his eyes. Apparently impromptu duels aren’t as common here as they are in my household. Corny’s just on the side of an exciting show.

I take the sword with a murmured thanks, pulling it free and testing its weight. It’s longer than I’m used to, oddly balanced and with ostentatious jewels set into the hilt. Still, a sword’s a sword. I move into warm-up positions without thinking, shifting the weight of my body along with the sword as I call upon muscles forgotten in my exile. I can already feel the strain that the undersea imprisonment and my own misery has put upon me, but I only stiffen my jaw. Kaye settles on the edge of a table’s umbrella, watching me with those dark, beady eyes. I do not meet her gaze.

Roiben finishes moving the last table and takes his position at one corner of the courtyard. I move to the other. A dozen ballads stream across my mind, of how Roiben killed this Queen or how Roiben butchered this pack or how Roiben just Roiben’ed it up all bloody and wild. He meets my gaze with a small, cold smile, as if he can tell what exactly I’m thinking. 

I tamp down my fear. I settle into my core. I am Jude Duarte, High Queen of Faerie, daughter of Madoc, and I am done suffering insults and making myself small. I am done playing the games of Fae for their pleasure alone. I am done wishing for each day to end so I can escape into sleep and nothing more. I am done simply existing.

I strike.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope everyone's having fun! i know i am! and i know jude's not! find me at attractive-zombies.tumblr.com for more twk stuff and fanart -- i have some half-finished illustrations for upcoming chapters, lemme know in the comments if i should bother to finish/include them!


	5. Ginger Tea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Bomb confronts Cardan about Jude and figures out an uncomfortable truth. The Roach is there for ... moral support?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh lord this is a doozy - if you're only interested in jude stuff, feel free to skip any chapters that are titled after teas! coffee = mortal realm, tea = elfhame. we'll get back to fun sword fighting and verbal abuse soon, don't worry! in other news, if you're interested in beta reading please let me know, i don't really know how these things work!

It’s easy to slyfoot around the court these days. Not that it was ever hard for the Bomb, of course, but there’s something to be said for appreciating small, easy things in a life so empty of them. Though the gentry are more eager than ever to endear themselves to the newly empowered High King, there’s been a distinct lack of heady revels that characterized the court prior. Outside of the few remaining secret passages, she turns around each corner expecting to run into a pack of drunken, giggling nobles topped off and tipsy, but - nothing. Nothing greets her but the sound of her own breathing. 

She makes her way to the back rooms commandeered for the new Court of Shadows. It hardly feels like a Court with so many dead and their Spymaster banished, but Van refused to give up. And with the Ghost still out there, she wasn’t planning on flitting off either. She slows, the door to the main room shut. That’s odd. Voices filter out as she slips to the side, pressing one ear to the wall adjacent to the door, her small frame hidden in the shadows. 

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you, milord.” The Roach - no, she wouldn't think of him with that name - Van's voice. She presses herself closer. He continues in a polite if aggravated tone. “We have few agents to send into the field, we lost our resources after the destruction the Ghost wrought and the Queen -”

“...The Queen?” Cardan’s voice now. Here, away from the court and the gentry, it loses its silky air and gains an odd edge instead. He doesn’t continue his question, just lets the words hang in the air. 

“Ah, apologies, not to - it was our name for her, like the Roach and the Bomb. I didn’t mean to make light of what happened.” 

The Court of Shadows, neutered as it was, found out about it afterwards. Found out that Jude had been banished, Orlagh dealt with and a new island raised, all in one fell swoop. Certainly a shift of the playing field. She still wasn’t sure how Cardan had managed to convince Jude to end their bargain early; Jude was never the sort to give up any power. She hungered after it like a starving dog. And her claim, as she was banished, that she was the High Queen...

Jude was a liar to be sure, but not a liar of that sort. She lied by omission, lied by not saying one thing or implying another. She lied in little fae ways and larger mortal ways, but a claim like that? That she was High Queen? It was like nothing the Bomb had ever heard before. Perhaps, and though the thought sent a cold pang down her core, her mind truly was touched by her month undersea. 

Cardan’s banishment would have been a blessing, then. After all, having a mortal girl claiming to be High Queen would be absurd, even a mortal girl as marvelous as Jude. But why did Cardan allow the jokes to continue? The jibes? He was cruel, but did he delight in despoiling her memory that much?

The High King was so rare to find alone now, even harder to find in the confidence of Van. If she was to find any answers, she would have to strike now. The Bomb pulls in a shallow breath and pushes open the door, dipping into a quick bow. “Your Majesty. Roach.” 

The two men startle and look over at her. Cardan’s black curls are tousled in a manner that suggests more exhausted nights than midnight couplings. Van eyes her, his features schooled into a careful consideration. 

Cardan speaks before Van can. “You certainly picked an opportune time to flit in.” The edge remains in his voice and she has to fight to keep from shying away. 

This is the High King, and while Jude might have been able to hold her ground, the Bomb knows in her bones, in her skin, the power that the Blood Crown allows. That the High King commands.

“Apologies, sire.” She dips her head again. “I was hoping to find you.” 

“You and everyone else.” He turns back to the table and leans back in his chair, idly playing with a coin. It flashes over his knuckles, seeming to glide in the air instead of travel across skin.

Is that all? Is he not going to give her the go-ahead to speak? She steals a look at Van, but all he does is move his shoulders in the barest whisper of a shrug. She steels herself - she wanted answers, didn’t she? - and presses on. 

But despite all of her concerns, the lack of direction for the Court of Shadows, the still-missing Grimsen, Madoc’s disappearance with half of the army, everything to do with the Ghost, the words that come to her lips are, “Why do you allow the court to mock Jude?”

She could taste the regret laced into every word even as they left her lips. Van looks down at his hands, laced and resting on the tabletop. Not a half second after she finished her sentence and she was already wondering how quickly she could make an escape without insult. The room offered no easy exit. She had no easy exit. 

Before she can offer apologies and retreat, he answers. “Allow the court? Whatever makes you think that?” The edge in his tone is gone, replaced by an amused lilt.

She looks to Van for aid, eyes wide. He reluctantly adds on, “You are High King, sire.” Elfhame answers to your whims and desires. 

As if bored, Cardan returns his gaze to the coin dancing across his knuckles. It speeds up. “I allow the court very little. It is an entity all its own.”

A fae nonanswer. With Van aiding her, she could hardly back down now. “She’s a joke now, you know. After everything she did for the crown.” After everything she did for you. 

He responds to her unsaid words. “She killed a family member of the crown, against my express desires, pushing the peace between land and sea to untenable ground.”

“She had no choice!” There it was - the burning pit of certainty that she had carried with her. “Do you think she challenged Balekin to a duel? Sick and tired, having just saved you from certain death? Still walking on legs weakened from a month in captivity and winds know what?” 

“Bomb,” Van cautions, but she’s gone this far and isn’t dead yet. Cardan doesn’t look up from his coin, the very picture of boredom. A slight breeze stirs through the cracked window. 

“She could have walked away,” Cardan comments mildly. 

She lets out a short, disbelieving laugh at that. “This is Jude. This is Jude against a man who helped keep her imprisoned for a month, and that’s not even touching everything else Balekin did.” 

“All the Bomb wants, your Majesty,” Van interjects, trying to smooth this over with his gallant, charming words, “Is for you to try and refrain from mocking Jude quite so openly. Maybe tell the court that no, she’s not your Queen, definitely not your wife, and that line of jest has gotten tired.” He tries a crooked smile. “Surely it can’t be that funny to begin with.”

“Indeed,” Cardan intones, apparently too tired to throw his weight around, “there is little funny about the thought of Jude as my wife.”

“I’m not sure why she tried that claim myself. Though,” Van muses, “I suppose she’s always had plots the rest of us weren’t privy to.”

But it was humiliating. But Jude would gain nothing from it. But Jude, obsessed with power, prestige and image, would never resort to such tactics. As a human seneschal, Jude’s reputation was one of a liar for the crown. But why would she lie and say she was part of the crown? What was there to gain? 

She stared down at her feet, forcing her mind to work through it. There wasn’t any answer that made sense. A phrase came to her, from a book series she had read when she was thieving in the mortal realm - it was a great series, full of intrigue and neatly laced together plots. The words came unbidden: Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. 

“Tell us that she lied.” Her words surprised herself. They were far harder than she was used to.

Cardan’s coin-dancing falters. It falls to the table, the sound seeming to echo in the silent room. He looks at her proper, eyes narrowed into small slits. The breeze picks up. “What.”

“Please,” She hurries on, “That’s all I want. Just tell us that she lied, and I could get over all the other lies she’s told us.” 

“Telling you this will stop nothing of the court.” He rises, pocketing the coin. Her heart hammers in her chest. He’s trying to escape. “I shall try to find a new target for their amusement. That is what you wished, and that is what you shall have.”

“Your Majesty...”, Van begins, and she recognizes that tone. Cardan ignores them both and glides towards the door. She steps in his way, trying to think of the smiling prince that played cards and made jokes, not this hard-edged king staring down at her like she is nothing more than a stray pest. 

“You can’t,” She breathes out, willing her words to form, his black eyes focused on her like flints of obsidian. “Because it’s true. You made Jude High Queen.”

Van swears.


	6. Cold Brew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jude reflects on her start in swordsmanship as she tests both her repartire and repartee against Roiben. It goes about as well as you would expect.

 

A first blade is more memorable than one’s first kiss. I picked mine a few days after Madoc had taken the three of us from our home, having shown in vivid detail just how effective a simple sword could be at wreaking destruction. Vivi made her hatred for Madoc clear from the beginning, with the sort of fae oath that set her apart from me and Taryn, but I never forgave Madoc either. I just went about it a different way.

 

Needless to say, stealing an oversized knife from the kitchen of your captor’s house and rushing him when you’re all of seven years old doesn’t tend to work well. The knife felt as large as a sword to me and felt just as heavy. I remember how the wrapped hilt became uncertain and sweaty in my hands. How giant Madoc looked as he loomed over his personal war table in his rooms, baleful, narrowed cat-eyes glancing back under furrowed dark brows - only to widen to golden disks when he realized why I was yelling a harsh cry and what exactly I was swinging at him. 

 

I was terrified, of course. I had never used a sword. I had seen my dad- my real father - make them and sell them, I had seen his friends come over and brandish them about in their elaborate costumes in the backyard, I had heard my mom hiss in a low tone that blades need to be kept away from small children, but I had never thought to pick one up myself. I might have been reckless, but I wasn’t stupid. Not back then. Not that stupid.

 

Fear and rage have a way of making anyone dim. Madoc easily side-stepped my strike, pulling out his own side sword from his belted sheath and batting mine away. I swayed to the side with how unbalanced my own blade was, struggling to haul it back up and swing again. 

 

“What exactly are you doing, child.” I remember wondering why he sounded so amused. I didn’t think anything about this was funny. 

 

I just tried to swing at him again. This time, I managed to clip the blade into his side. I was so surprised that I almost dropped it. I stared at him for a moment. I had hit him - what was I supposed to do next?

 

He answered the question for me. He reached down and grabbed my wrist, forcing the blade from my hand. It couldn’t have been hard. It hurt. I refused to make any noise or cry. It wouldn’t help anything. Taryn had cried when Madoc stole us away, and that didn’t help. He’d like seeing me upset. 

 

I could hold back the hot, angry tears, but I couldn’t stop the sniffling. Madoc knelt and tossed the ornamented blade to the side, his gaze locked on mine. My hand was still caught in his grip no matter how hard I tugged back. His palms were rough. I think he was born with calloused hands.

 

“You will never surprise a foe if you announce yourself with a battle cry. Battle cries are for battlefields, not assassinations.” I was so surprised that he wasn’t cutting me open that I stopped tugging, just for a moment. His voice had a different ring to it. 

 

He looked over at the blade. “And that is nothing more than set decoration, not suitable at all. You ought to have known better...”  He trailed off and stared at the blade for a moment longer. 

 

At the time, I had no idea why he was acting like that. Now, I can’t help but wonder if he was imagining my dad’s obsession with swords and blacksmithing, and how a daughter of Justin Duarte ought to know better than to strike with a fake sword. How a daughter of Eva Duarte should be cleverer than charging against an impossible target while shouting. It’s still odd to think that they were all friends, once. I don’t like dwelling on that. I imagine Madoc doesn’t either.

 

Either way, while he was distracted I bit his hand as hard as I could. I’m not sure what I thought would happen. I definitely didn’t think he’d startle, stare down at me and then break into a laugh. His skin tasted salty and like old pennies, as if the blood he’d shed over the years had soaked into his hide. 

 

The next day, he started proper training for me, Taryn and Vivi. 

 

Fighting Lord Roiben feels much like rushing at Madoc as a sweaty-palmed, terrified child . I’m out of shape from my refusal to do anything but binge cartoons and eat overly-processed food, my responses and reflexes eroded away from my time under the sea and on top of it all, Roiben is just  _ good _ . 

 

He moves with the effortless grace of the fae, his massive longsword more an extension of his figure than a weapon itself. Where Madoc fought with the clear, simple brutality of a soldier, Roiben strikes as I imagine a dancer would, or a knight - just as concerned with the pageantry of the blade as the blood drawn. 

 

I find myself working harder than I’ve had to in months. He pushes me back through the courtyard, the sounds of metal against metal ill-fitting in this cozy courtyard. My feet slide on the uneven cobbles, my thrifted shoes a poor comparison to my normal gear. I grit my teeth and narrowly dodge his next swing, the metal cutting through the air mere centimeters from my skin. My blood runs cold. Roiben always struck me as honorable. Would he truly maim me in a duel?

 

I return the strike, almost managing to land a glancing blow. Roiben lets out a small huff and draws back, stalking around me. I have to turn in a circle else be cornered. I imagine this is what deer must feel like, seeing the glint of a panther’s eyes through the underbrush. 

 

He asks, “What brought you here,” in a tone that barely implies a question. 

 

My nerves are strung so taut that it takes me a moment to register it as a question at all. Is this a distraction? I keep my eyes on him as he continues to circle, blade held easily in his bare grip. He isn’t striking yet.

 

“I already said, my sister-” 

 

He lunges. I barely manage to stumble to the side, my words coming out in a running-together of air. “-Vivibroughtmeanapplication!” 

 

The questions come as fast as his strikes: each slow and deliberate, more toying with me thn forcing a response. “Is your presence here the High General’s doing?”

 

It’s hard to manage both coherent answers and keep my guard up. Madoc’s name brings my barely-contained anger bubbling to the surface. I let out a snarl as I lunge forward, dipping low to try and exploit Roiben’s larger size and hopefully, more unwieldy defenses. “No.”

 

He pivots a half-second too late, as if he was waiting for my answer. He dodges the brunt of my attack, but I felt the pressure of flesh underneath my blade, the familiar sensation of cutting into something more dense than air; I landed a hit. I’m struggling to keep my breathing even, but a swell grows in my chest. I haven’t lost it all after all.

 

My victory is short lived as Roiben closes the gap once more. “Why has no one come for you? Does the High General’s protection extend to the mortal realm? Have you made a deal for amnesty from all fae, here?” I don’t know if Roiben’s the sort of fae to sweat. He hasn’t broken one now. 

 

“I don’t know!” The rush of adrenaline spiked with the anger of being reminded of my father pulls a harsh, raw edge to my voice. As our blades meet once again, I snap out, “I haven’t spoken to him since I was banished!”

 

“You seem to know little at all,” Roiben remarks. He pushes against our crossed blades, forcing me back. No matter how deft I may be - or have once been - with a sword, he has the advantage of size. I have to fight to keep my footing. “Do you know how they mock you?”

 

“What?” I pull my blade back and duck out from Roiben’s sudden loss of balance. It takes me a moment to register the odd light in his eyes. We stand at opposite ends of the courtyard. My arms and legs burn from exertion, but I welcome the pain. It’s an old friend. 

 

Roiben tilts his head to the side, his glacier-white sheet of hair trailing like silk across his features. “Elfhame mocks you as Queen of Faerie. Whatever possessed you to make such a claim?” The other questions were forceful. This one has a hint of true curiosity in it. 

 

I am grateful that we are at opposite ends of the courtyard and that Kaye and Corny are sitting too far away to see the look that crosses my face. I knew they would mock me. The court never took to me as the seneschal, why would they pass up a ripe, mortal target for insults? But it’s one thing to think of it as a possibility, another to hear it as a certain truth. The sound of their laughter filters back to me, the ringing peals of Cardan’s laugh clear above it all. My mind is a cacophony of their jeers. Of Cardan’s lips pulled into a grin, exposing teeth.

 

I tremble, the pain in my limbs forgotten, a white-hot rage consuming me. I gave up so much to be accepted as a fae. I stood at the High King’s side through wiles that would have impressed even the tricksiest pixie. And after all of it, I was outsmarted by a cruel boy, taken in as easily as Taryn was with Locke. Taken in worse, really; she has a marriage worth something, a partner to face life with, a home in Elfhame. I have nothing but empty promises and a crown of nothing. I let the sensation wash over me, willing myself to be lost in its currents. 

 

“I make no claims but the truth.”

 

I allow myself the smallest of moments to revel in their surprise - the small widening of his eyes, the gasp from the peanut gallery of Kaye and Corny - and then I lunge. We’re both surprised when I land a proper hit, my blade cutting into the arm he drew up to guard his chest. 

 

The fae that knocks me down a moment later with a simple, efficient blow to the chest is not the same fighter I have been dueling with. I realize as my head strikes the soft dirt of the grass edging and pain shoots through my body, as my sword is knocked from my hand and skitters away, that the entire duel was nothing more than a game to Roiben. He could have ended it at any time. There’s no room in my body for humiliation, though. Not yet.

 

I try to scrabble back and grab my sword, but Roiben steps forward and places the tip of his blade a hair’s breadth away from my neck. I freeze, breathing shallow, and meet his gaze. Reading a fae’s intentions is never easy. Reading Roiben’s is near-impossible. I’m not sure if his face is even capable of proper articulation. 

 

“Will you be a Queen of Faerie?”

 

The emphasis on the words is wrong. The wording itself is wrong. I strain to hold myself up on my elbows, the meaning of his question settling into place. Not am I Queen, but will I be; will I be able to be a queen of the people that mock and scorn me? Will I be able to rule over a land of which I can never truly be a part of? 

 

I swallow and hope my voice rings true, even if I am not sure of it myself. “Yes.”

 

His eyes narrow. His blade is as steady as ice. “Will you yield.”

 

I look away. My sword is too far to grab, my muscles scream out for relief and the driving rush of anger is ebbing away. According to the rules of any proper duel, I have yielded already. 

 

But will I yield the crown? 

 

I force myself to meet his gaze. I am done with ever being intimidated by the fae, no matter what advantage they have on me. “No.”

 

His blade doesn’t move. My heart thuds in my chest. Maybe that was the wrong answer. He would have every right to end me now. He could - 

 

His lips quirk up into a slight smile. In one fluid motion he sheaths his blade and offers me a hand. I stare at it like a dumb animal presented with an open stable door. 

 

“Come,” he says, his voice almost warm. “I think we all have much to discuss.”

 

Behind me, I am vaguely aware of a voice - Kaye’s, I think, but my mind is swimming too much to tell- laughing. “No shit!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOF this one's somehow even more of a doozy! i hope y'all had a great weekend! my bday was on sunday and i had my first ever legal drink!...and the waitress didn't even card me. womp womp. anyway, we're fiiiinally creeping up on the jude/cardan stuff! i hope y'all are enjoying the very very very slow creep up towards what will be, eventually, i promise, cute shippy shit. well. maybe cute shippy shit. maybe they'll try to kill each other. who knows. 
> 
> decided to include an illustration i drew bc c'mon why the fuck not.


	7. Foam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jude, Roiben and Kaye talk strategy and motivation over coffee.

“So, what’s, like, your plan now?” Kaye looks at me over the edge of her cup, a brightly painted oversized mug that has a chipped bottom. I think all the mugs in this place have chips somewhere. I’m not sure if it’s purposeful or not. 

 

We’re all sitting at a small round table tucked into a corner of the closed coffee shop. Corny had to head home after closing up, leaving the three of us to lurk in the long shadows. Kaye leans against the wall, the window open and her cigarette-holding hand draped out of it. Roiben wears a light bandage from the single cut I managed to inflict on him. I’m just dazed.

 

I blow on my own mug to avoid answering. There’s some sort of flavored latte in there, with an extra shot of espresso, ‘to perk me up’, Corny had said. 

 

“C’mon, you’re not really just going to sulk ironside, are you?” Kaye’s grin is sharp, her teardrop black eyes piercing. I know it’s not smart to underestimate pixies, and any pixie that nabbed a gentry Lord despite being a changeling has to have untold talents. The pair of them have no real reason to love me, but they have reason to love an Elfhame tied close with the Undersea and ruled by a capricious King even less. She continues as I return my gaze to my mug, my free hand worrying at the ring around my finger. “Why haven’t you tried to go back yet?”

 

Roiben remains silent. He’s said his piece with the duel. Now, it seems, he’s content to sit and watch. He has a cup of tea. I’m left on my own.

 

I finally take a sip of my drink before answering. “I have. Or - I did. It didn’t work.”

 

“Can’t you just, like, pardon yourself?,” Kaye asked.  “You are the crown now, right? Or part of the crown anyway.” She looks to Roiben. “That’s how the Blood Crown works, isn’t it?”

 

I had already outlined the details of my banishment, the exact wording that Cardan used, the terms of our marriage - and the deal before. Roiben had taken it with little comment. Kaye, to my surprise, was immediately on my side. Something about personal experience with being banished from courts, she had said. I hadn’t asked further. 

 

Roiben nods, once. “If the High King was to die tomorrow, a successor would have to come after Jude, instead. But as we can see, she currently has no crown, and cannot pardon as such. I suppose,” He muses, “It could have been a liability plan from Cardan.”

 

“I doubt it. He should have told me if it was.” I hate how peevish and sullen I sound, the bitter hint of a woman wronged creeping into my tone.    
  


_ When did you ever tell me anything? Why would I owe you a single one of my secrets? _

 

Kaye asks, “Maybe if you knew, it wouldn’t have worked as well? Needed a real reaction to get Orlagh and the rest off your back?”

 

Roiben says, “He could have been trying to protect you from the court. From Orlagh-” 

 

Kaye shoots him a look and he quickly adds on, as if chagrined, “-though if so, that was not his place, and not so to do without discussion and honesty.” I try to hide my surprise at the sight of a gentry lord shamed so easily. What does Kaye  _ have _ over him?

 

_ Maybe a taste for women with dagger-sharp words runs in fae lords. _

 

But for me and Cardan, honesty was never the foundation of our relationship, if you could call it that. The idea of being honest with Cardan, of telling him how I truly feel and what I truly want, is equal parts terrifying and thrilling. Once, I wanted nothing more than for him to take me into his arms and tell me everything would be alright. I hate that I still want that. I hate that I dream of waking up tangled with him, his hair soft and sleep-mussed. I hate that I can hear his voice tossing light barbs and twisted words at me wherever I go, a constant chorus of not-insults and not-compliments. I hate that I can’t get him out of my head no matter how hard I try.

 

_ Now you know how it feels, darling Jude.  _

 

The only reason he’d ever take me into his arms would be to drive a dagger into my back. 

 

My feelings must be clear on my face, as Kaye comments dryly, “Were you two ever honest with each other? Why’d you even fall for the marriage thing?”

 

I don’t have the answers for her, but I try. The words feel awkward in my mouth. I know I’m not telling the truth, but I’m not sure how I’m lying, either. “No. We never liked each other. He was only honest when forced to. And I thought that a marriage would tie me to the throne in a way not easily broken, but obviously I was wrong.” 

 

I pull in a shaky breath and down a bit of my coffee.  These words ring true, at least. “Cardan wanted revenge for what I did to him and his family and he wanted me out of the way. That’s all there is.”

 

“Well,” Kaye says, taking a drag off of her cigarette, “We can’t have that, can we? So what are you gonna do about it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the short chapter! im trying to update more frequently, but wow, its tough! im gonna try to include more obvious indications of cardan's voice in jude's head, bc ... i feel bad for how long its taking to get to actual "canon" shippy stuff. lemme know what you think!


	8. Irish Cream Coffee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jude goes out on a night on the town to drink and forget, but an awfully familiar figure makes the second part impossible.

 

“C’mon, it’ll be fun,” Vivi pleads.

 

I give her a look from behind the counter, but I’m sure my patched-up ‘Moon in a Cup’ apron detracts from the strength of the stare. 

 

As Vivi is immune to all my looks, she just grins wider. “You’ve never been out clubbing over here! It’s not like the parties you’re used to at all!”

 

“No, I’m sure they’re not,” I comment dryly. I pass over the two drinks her and Heather ordered, hoping that if I avoid Vivi’s gaze she’ll get bored and leave. Oak sits at a little kid’s table, sipping on hot cocoa with his backpack slung over a chair. Heather sits, perched atop a stool at the counter, looking more amused by the sisterly bickering than anything else.

 

The parties I’m used to involve faerie wine, thick and heady, nearly as intoxicating as the bright, perfect creatures that attend them. An image of Cardan flashes into my mind, unbidden, gold smeared around his lips and dusting his eyes, flecks caught in his eyelashes, in his curls. 

 

_ Kiss me until I am sick of it _ .

 

My jaw tightens as I force the image away. I did kiss him until he was sick of it, and then he cast me aside. I will not let my mind be plagued by someone who I’ve sworn to dethrone. 

 

It took hours of back and forth between the three - me, Kaye, and Roiben - of us to come to a consensus moving forward, the main points being:  I would indeed work at Moon in a Cup, in return for Roiben giving me martial lessons and Kaye would help me adjust to the mortal realm in exchange for me teaching her the finer points of fae etiquette. Kaye refused to budge when I asked whether it was necessary to really work as a barista considering the plan we had for the crown, saying something about how I need to ‘understand and learn’ the mortal realm.

 

Still, the routine was good for me. I ended up on second shift, coming in on the afternoons and staying until close. Without my signature doublets and right-hand spot at the throne, I don’t think any of the fae who came in really realized who I was. I was just another of Kaye’s mortal friends, picking up shifts for whatever reason. I would be lying if I said it didn’t sting, being brought so low, but meeting Roiben in the courtyard after my shift was over for combat lessons made it hurt a bit less. 

 

No matter how much I filled my days with tasks, whether that was meeting with Kaye to go over the hottest meme that everyone was quoting or joining Vivi and Oak in the park for playtime, I could never banish Cardan’s voice from my thoughts. When I had to deal with a particularly irate customer, he would advise me in sardonic tones how best to proceed, how best to flatter a wounded ego. 

 

_ Simply tell them what they want to hear, but twist it a bit. Make them think like they’re winning. _

 

When I felt cowed by Roiben’s experience and Kaye’s relentless spark, he would make some off-hand remark about how sad it was to see a seneschal brought so low. I tried to ignore the words I knew were my own, simply said in his tone, but some small part of me wanted him to stay. 

 

I hated that part of me almost as much as I hated the rest.

 

Heather’s voice pulls me out of my reverie. “It’s way safer, too. You don’t get overwhelmed in these sorts of parties the way I did at...” She trails off. Vivi gives her hand a small, almost apologetic squeeze. I’m not sure how they managed to make up after the disastrous marriage between Locke and Taryn. A tale for another time, I’m sure.

 

“She’s right,” Kaye chimes in, blowing in through the front door like dandelion puffs on a breeze. She swings up to sit on the counter, a wide grin plastered across her face. “Mortal parties are, like, way more fun. Not the same at all.”

 

“Are you going with them too?” It’s hard to keep the incredulous tone from my voice as Kaye nods. “When did this turn into a girl’s night out? I’m not even legal -”

 

Vivi holds up a leaf between her fingers, one that she apparently just brought in with her,  twisting it back and forth. “Glamouring an I.D. is just as easy as glamouring money.”

 

Judging by how easy the anger flares up inside me, maybe a night out would be good for me. I’ve been working non-stop for the past few weeks, eager for the certainty of a schedule and the progress towards my return to Elfhame, but none of it has helped my mood. I’m just as quick to snap, just as quick to scorn. I don’t know when I became this way, but I’m liking it less and less. I just don’t know how to stop it. 

 

_ Haven’t you always been like this? Mortal Jude, twice as prickly as any rosebush and just as lovely. _

 

Heather must be able to smell my weakness, as she adds on in an apologetic tone, “It’ll just be for a bit. An excuse to dress up. And if you don’t like it, one of us can always take you back home.”

 

I bristle at the implication, that I’ll be too weak to stand even just one night of normal mortal parties. I survived cleaning up after Cardan’s debauches and Locke’s events. The idea that I can’t make it through a single night of mortal revelry is insulting. 

 

_ You never enjoyed my parties. A shame, that. You cheeks look so delicious when they’re rosied by wine. _

 

“Fine,” I say, and pull off my apron and unpin my nametag. Kaye lets out a crowing noise of triumph and gives Vivi a high-five. “I’ll go. Just to shut you all up.”

 

And to shut up the silky-smooth voice inside my head.

 

* * *

 

 

Mortal wine is not nearly as strong as faerie wine. However, mortal tequila comes close. Doing shots with Vivi, Heather and Kaye was a very bad idea. I can’t hear anything over the din of the music. It’s loud, so loud, the bass reverberating in my bones. I can’t really remember anything that’s happened tonight. It’s just a haze of alcohol, of dressing up with my sister and flashing a fake ID to get in, of being pulled onto the dance floor and realizing, for the first time in my life, that I can dance somewhere and choose to leave it whenever I want.

 

Humans don’t dance as fae do. There’s no genteel grace or wild circles. It’s a constant gyration of bodies, hips and legs and bare, sweaty skin. It’s raw. It makes me feel alive. I dance, enamored by the novelty of being able to push my way to the edge whenever I want despite the haze of alcohol clouding my mind. I court the attention of others, but I can’t bring myself to do more than dance alongside, letting the energy of the music pulse through my blood.

 

The pulsing becomes unbearable. I stumble out of the throng of dancers, unsure if I feel giddy or sick or both. My ring feels oddly heavy on my finger. I refused to take it off, even when Vivi complained that it didn’t match my outfit at all. That’s another thing that’s different - no elaborate dresses, just simple, sparkly tops and pants so tight that they leave little to the imagination. My hair’s pulled out of my face and secured with some of Kaye’s barrettes - totally 90’s, she had said, so totally cool. 

 

Right now, I can’t taste anything but a sour bile in the back of my throat. My head swims. This isn’t the pleasant delirium of a golden apple or of faerie wine. With a sudden, awful and lucid flash, I realize I’m about to throw up. 

 

There’s no time to find Heather or Vivi or Kaye. I push my way towards the door, head swimming, limbs heavy. The cold air hits me like a blade to the skin, cutting right to the quick, but it’s welcome over the sweaty heat of inside. I stumble down the steps and manage to retch into the gutter. I heave, everything I’ve had to drink over the past few hours making a reappearance, the acrid taste of my own insides foul on my tongue. I feel awful. Why did people do this? What was so appealing about being drunk? Why was Cardan never sober? 

 

I stand there for a long moment, my hands pressed against my upper thighs, bracing myself against the last of the retching. My mind feels a bit more clear. 

 

Someone wolf-whistles behind me. 

 

I slowly stand and turn. Two men stand outside the club, one smoking, the other presumably out there to keep him company. I wipe a trail of spittle from the side of my mouth. I hadn’t realized others were out here.

 

“Too much to drink, babe?” The one smoking speaks. His voice is a low leer, the edges softened by drink.

 

Anger spikes through me. Their stares settle on me like the slime from a stagnant pond, one I was stupid enough to step near. 

 

I cough and shake my head no. Why can’t I come up with some witty, clever remark? Everything’s hazy. Blurry. “I’m married.”

 

They stare at me and then burst into laughter. My cheeks grow hot. 

 

“That’s a new one!,” One of them crows. “Usually it’s just ‘sorry mate, I’ve got a boyfriend’!”

 

“If he let you out of the house looking like that, maybe he wants to share,”  the smoker sneers, gesturing at me with his hand. “Daddy let you play dress up with-”

 

I move without thinking. My hand shoots up to grab the man’s arm, a foot hooking out to send him straight to the ground.  There’s a crunch. Roiben would be proud of me. I’ve taken his new lessons to heart.

 

I’m grateful that I chose to wear a pair of thick combat boots instead of the heels Vivi suggested. I raise a foot and slam it down on the man’s chest. He chokes. He needs to choke more. He needs to hurt more. I raise my foot again, the anger clouding out anything else in my mind, the rage at being dismissed once again, always dismissed, always left behind and left out and cast aside, at being discounted and forgotten -

 

I see a small faerie boy cowering on the ground beneath me. He’s missing a wing. He’s screaming. I tore off his wing. Cardan tore off his wing. 

 

My breath catches in my throat. Now I’m the one choking. I stumble back as the man wheezes on the hard concrete, clutching his chest. His friend stares on in horror, the cigarette falling out of his mouth. “You - you bitch! He didn’t -” 

 

I turn and run before he can say anything else. 

 

* * *

 

 

I’m not sure how I manage to find a small, quiet park in the middle of the city, but I’m grateful when I do. My legs and lungs ache from the running and my throat is raw from having to stop and retch along the way. I ran until it hurt and then I kept running, as if the pain would help me forget what I saw. What I almost did.

 

I stumble into the park, moving through the manicured grass until I find a small copse of trees, sequestered further. It’s blissfully empty. I slide down to the ground, my back pressed against the smooth bark of a tree and pull my legs up to my chest. The ground is cold, but I don't care. Everything is cold. My breathing is ragged. My mind is ragged. I am ragged.

 

I try to pull in a breath but all I manage is a sob. Then another. My cries are pitifully strangled, the sound of a kicked dog. I find myself speaking my thoughts aloud, as if vocalizing them will make it any better. “I could have killed him. I would have killed him and enjoyed it. I’m awful. I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve any of this.” But what this meant, I wasn’t sure. 

 

I repeat those words like a mantra, willing the haze to leave my mind. It doesn’t work. My thoughts are clawed down into an awful, dark pit, one full of mangled faeries and dead young men, their rib cages crushed under my heel. All of Elfhame crushed under my heel. My loved ones. Taryn. Vivi. Oak. Valerian’s curse came true. 

 

“Well, that’s just not true.”

 

Those words aren’t mine. I jolt, looking up from my knees. A figure stands before me, draped in darkness as if they own the night. Their features are hidden in shadow, but I would recognize that voice anywhere. I would recognize that voice on my deathbed. I’ve dreamed of that voice, dreamed of choking it of air underneath my hands as its owner writhes beneath me. 

 

But now, with the feel of the man’s rib cage still solid under my feet and the image of the torn-wing pixie fresh in my mind, I can’t bring myself to be angry at anyone but myself.

 

“I’m drunk,” I state in a dull tone. “So you’re not here.”

 

“Perhaps,” says Cardan, as he lowers himself into a kneel before me, his dark curls falling over his forehead, the fur ruff on his coat so soft that I just want to sink my shaking fingers into it. “But may I sit awhile anyway?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY. FINALLY. WE'RE FINALLY TO THE FUN PART WITH CARDAN. thanks yall for sticking with me! its gonna get ... juicy, ahead.... >:3c


	9. Green Tea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Bomb reflects on an awkward conversation regarding Jude and Cardan while she deals with a soon-to-be awkward situation regarding Jude and Cardan.

The tang of iron burns hot in the Bomb’s lungs as her feet alight across the concrete sidewalk, her lithe frame a blur. It’s not an entirely unwelcome burn; it reminds her of wily, wild times with Van, back when the only concern was what they could pull over the mortals instead of the fate of all of Elfhame. Plenty of fae don’t like ironside. She isn’t one of them. True, she doesn’t love it enough to ever want to take up permanent residence, but she was the first to volunteer to keep tabs on the exiled queen.

 

"You made Jude High Queen.” She had barely believed it, even though her own lips spoke the words. Cardan met her gaze, one hand balled tight into a fist at his side. 

 

And then he laughed. He looked back at Van, an easy smile splitting his face, the jester-spy of a prince returning. “Is the crown paying for you two to come up with ridiculous claims? I thought we had heard the last of Jude being my consort with her exile.”

 

Van didn’t laugh. She was grateful for that. “You haven’t answered her yet, sire.”

 

Cardan didn’t stop smiling. She was reminded of a boy who managed to con both her and Van out of gold all while being tied to a chair and, perhaps, hours away from his own death. If his tail was out, would it be twitching like a cornered beast’s? 

 

“Am I to take orders, now? That’s a bit of an odd turn for a High King.”

 

“You promised her power, by being Queen. That’s how you escaped her fetters.” She didn’t recognize the voice speaking for a moment. With a start, she realized it was her own. “That’s why, when she told you to tell the truth, that she was High Queen, you were able to laugh it away with everyone else.” 

 

The smile slipped from Cardan’s features. He stared down at her for a moment, then over to Van. Finally, he sank back into his chair, a fine-fingered hand brought up to hold his brow. He looked so tired, dark eyes cast down, slender frame slumped. Nothing but a boy playing at being king, a marionette whose owner’s hand had been cut away. 

 

The three held the silence for a long moment. Van was the one to drop it. “So it’s true, then.” 

 

Cardan let out a bitter laugh. “It’s true. I can see why Jude had such a liking for you two.”

 

Van took it surprisingly well. Well, first he had excused himself from the room (presumably to scream into some closet and curse up a storm) and returned with a bottle of wine, but once they had all settled down with a drink he seemed to have accepted this as their fate. “The way I see it, there are only two important questions. One, is Jude meant to stay exiled, and two, who is keeping watch on her.” He paused. “A third, actually. How long do we have until she attempts to bring an army back here on her own, somehow.”

 

“You can’t believe she’d do that,” she breathed out. “This is Elfhame! It’s her home! She fought harder than any of us to keep it whole after Balekin’s massacre during the coronation!”

 

“And she’s also been spurned by it her entire life, culminating in her own father and sister betraying her, then her new husband casting her out. Why would she have any love for a land that never had any for her?” He shook his head. “She’s a mortal. They don’t think like we do.”

 

“She’s barely an adult to begin with, even with mortal lifespans. Maybe she enjoys the mortal realm - she has her sister, right? And Oak?” She glanced sidelong at Cardan, unwilling to meet his gaze full-on. “What has your intelligence reported on her?”

 

Cardan didn’t answer. He just stared down at the table. 

 

“...Sire,” Van asked, trying to keep the notes of concern from his tone, “You have assigned people to watch her, right? People that are not us? Members of the guard, perhaps?”

 

Cardan took a long sip of wine. His glass was already close to empty. “She was exiled,” he muttered, low and dark. “I had no excuse to place a guard around her. People would talk.”

 

“...Because then they might suspect that, if the High King cares so much still about an abandoned seneschal, that there might be truth to the claim of High Queen.” Van finished. 

 

The Bomb leaned back in her chair. She downed her wine in a gulp, desperate for the strength of the alcohol to bolster her quickly sinking spirit. “We’ll be lucky if Madoc hasn’t gotten to her already.”

 

Cardan looked affronted at that. “Madoc betrayed her. I hardly think she’d be willing to listen to him again.” 

 

“Jude is her father’s daughter,” Van sighed, “And I think she’d ally with anyone to have a chance at getting your head. Why did you marry her, Cardan? Why couldn’t you just wait a few months more, to be free on your own?”

 

Van answered before Cardan could. “Because he wanted to keep her safe.” He glanced at her, his gaze odd and inscrutable, before continuing. “It wasn’t to rid himself of her fetters. It was to keep her out of Orlagh’s grasp. Out of fae politics. We all saw how she was wasting away, poisoning herself every night and working herself to the bone every day.”

 

She saw more. She remembered how awful that month of Jude’s absence had been. Cardan ruled quite well without Jude, but he moved as a construct would, simply making the correct decisions when needed and powered by something forever outside his reach. The arguments and meetings with Madoc were nigh-daily, both men fighting for Jude’s return. 

 

She had found him once on the cliff, staring down at the ocean with a gaze so black the midnight sky would blanche in response.  The seasalt breeze whipped his cloak and set his hair askew in a dark cloud of curls, a silent taunt. She had always wondered after the nature of Cardan and Jude’s relationship, but never the commitment. But when she had stepped out of the shadows to try and shepherd him to safety, he had only given her a glib comment in return, the dark gaze traded for one of easy petulance.

 

Now, Cardan said nothing, unwilling to confirm or deny. “The marriage offered new solutions to insurmountable problems, problems that would put all of Elfhame at risk. I was not willing to take such risks, not when the cost of life would rise so high.” 

 

Van said, “Sire, with all due respect, we need someone - hell, multiple someones - keeping an eye on her. If she isn’t moving to meet with Grimsen or Madoc already, she will. Soon.”  

 

And that was when the Bomb volunteered. The last concern - if Jude was meant to stay exiled - conveniently passed by without comment. 

 

At first, she had little to report back, beyond Jude rarely leaving the apartment except when forced to by Vivi. But then she had made a trip to a small, lovingly shabby cafe, and everything had changed. Each new report was met with a mixture of pride and dread, as she chronicled how Jude was consorting with the Lord of Termites and his consort, how Jude was training again, how Jude had joined some mortal gym and seemed to be growing far stronger in the mortal realm than she had been able to when leashed by unsaid fae expectations. 

 

They had considered cornering Lord Roiben and Kaye, but after Balekin’s attack on the Termite Court no one felt eager to strike another blow. And Jude’s exile said nothing about partaking in fae outside of Elfhame. So for weeks, no decisions were made at all. 

 

Cardan never missed a single briefing session. He acted disinterested, as if eager for her to tell her piece and move on, but she didn’t mistake the glint in his eyes, the way he always worried a small golden-and-ruby ring on his finger whenever he was concerned. The design of the ring was vaguely familiar, but she wasn’t sure why. He asked for specific details of the cafe, the sort of clientele, whether or not Madoc had stopped in, a thousand explanations until she was certain she could have constructed the entire miserable mortal block from memory. 

 

During the briefings, she had dismissed it as just a desire for the specifics. But now, as she ran through the dirty streets of a mortal city, the cold air catching her white braids like silks behind her, she knew better. It was her own fault for not realizing why he had started to look more and more tired during court functions. Why he never met with the Court of Shadows during the mortal hours of evening. Why some of his questions seemed phrased to remind him of something, instead of tell him anew. 

 

Van had taught him sly-footing too well. 

 

She rounds a corner and skids to a halt, two figures visible in the dark shadows of the park ahead. She quickly ducks behind the trunk of a tree, chest heaving, breaths silent. So he had found Jude after all. And she could do nothing but sit and wait. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope everyone's having a lovely week! i love writing the bomb, though i feel like my characterization of her is shaky at times. oh well! as you can tell, my favorite thing about cardan/jude is how they both refuse to ever properly vocalize or talk about their feelings with literally a n y o n e.


	10. Dark Chocolate Mocha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jude and Cardan have a heart-to-heart that somehow, miraculously, doesn't end in stabbing.

Cardan kneels before me in this dark, cold city park, his black eyes inscrutable, his bearing as disgustingly regal as always, like a cut-out of some ornate painting pasted into a newspaper ad.

I try to think of some witty, scathing retort. Something that would condense the weeks of hatred I’ve felt into a few syllables. Something that Oriana would be proud of.

“Fuck off.”

I find, to equal parts horror and delight, Cardan finds that amusing - amusing enough to laugh at it, a soft and quiet sound. He sinks to the ground beside me, seeming to belong to the cold roots and dirt of a mortal tree as much as he does to the expansive throne of Elfhame.

I hate it. I hate him. I hate how my heart leaps into my chest at the sound of his laugh most of all. 

My legs are still clutched to my chest, my hands bound tight around each other to keep from shaking. I try to tell myself that I’m glad for the cold, that it’ll bring me out of my fuzzy, drunken state sooner, but even I find that hard to believe.

“Turning to drink for a distraction? That’s low for you, Jude.” Though I don’t look at him, I can feel his gaze. 

"You rule either drunk or hungover."

A moment later he asks, “Are mortals stronger in the cold?”

“Yes,” I lie, and try and change the topic, my words coming slow and slurred no matter how much I concentrate. “No ‘dear wife’? Just Jude? Is it easier that way?”

I hear a sharp intake of breath, the hatred turning over into a bright flash of triumph - then disgust. Why do I enjoy hurting others so much? Why does it make me feel better?

“You are Jude before you are ever a wife.” His tone is so low that it breaks my resolve. I look over, trying to search for his face in the long, icy shadows of the night. “I have no wish to lower you to only such a title.”

I bark out a strangled laugh at that, one so ugly Grimsen couldn’t use it for anything. “Says the man who threw me out of my home after managing to tell the worst lies to my face. You-” I lurch to the side, retching up nothing but bile, hands splayed out on the ground for support. I can feel my entire frame shaking. 

He reaches out to lay a hand on my shoulder and I flinch back. He pulls his hand back, and if I was less drunk, I might think I didn’t imagine the hurt look that flashed across his face. I growl out, “I’m fine.”

“You’re shaking.” 

“From pure rage at seeing you, don’t worry.” 

“Why are you here, Jude?”

It takes me a moment to process both his question and his tone - something distant, almost weary. I sit back against the tree and wrap my hands together, willing the little needle-scratches of cold to disappear. Tequila might not be as powerful as faerie fruit, but it loosens the tongue just as well. 

“I almost curb-stomped some guy.”

“...What?” 

“You know. Someone’s on a curb, and - no, I think that their jaw has to be on the curb, so you stomp on the back of their head, so it’s not... maybe not really a curb-stomp. A sidewalk stomp?” I pantomime a bit, stomping the heel of my boot against the packed dirt. 

He swallows. “So...a sidewalk stomp, then. Was it a duel? Did someone insult your honor yet again?”

I try to think back. “Insulted both of us, really.” I’m hit with the sudden realization that out of the two fights I’ve gotten into recently - Roiben and this - both were over my ties to Elfhame, whether that be the crown or my marriage. I don’t like that at all. 

He doesn’t reply. The silence stretches between us. The face of the cowering faerie boy is still fresh in my mind, but it’s me that stands above him, not Cardan. I feel compelled to continue, as if this is one of those church confessionals, the shadows of the branches close enough to a masking screen. 

“I think I would have ripped off that boy’s wing.” I feel hollow even speaking the words.

He blinks. He stares. He tilts his head like a cat trying to understand, a few inky curls falling over his features. I want to push them back, so I can see him more clearly. “Do humans come with wings now, or-”

“Not him. The one at Elfhame, months ago. The pixie who didn’t bow for you.” 

Realization dawns on his face, his features clouding over. An unpleasant reminder of an earlier time. 

My words spill out, the dam breaking. “Do you know why I fought so hard in the mock battles? The ones you told me to give up on? I wanted to be a knight, I wanted to be able to be claimed by one of your siblings and have a place at court. I wanted to be like all the knights in the stories that Taryn loves, the ones with noble hearts and clear minds and do nothing but protect their lands and the innocents, but instead I ended up some evil queen, working in the shadows, pulling the strings while everyone loves to hate her. 

“I hated you so much for being cruel, because you had everything I had nothing, but maybe I just hated you because you were able to do what I couldn’t. You could bully and snap at people and make them listen to you, and the best I could do was piss people off and act as a punching bag for my sister, who ended up - ended up hating me and throwing me out anyway.”

My voice peters out at the end, the words staccato from the shivers wracking my body. I don’t have the will to object when Cardan unpins his coat - no, I realize, no coat at all but an elaborate fur-ruffed and fur-lined cape - and drapes it around both of us. 

He maintains a safe distance, maybe expecting me to flinch again, but it’s different if I get to choose. I lean against his side, my body betraying me in its search for comfort. At least it’s nicer than the tree.

He exhales, slow and soft. I can feel the warmth of his breath against my skin as he murmurs, “Taryn is a fool. Do you know when I first noticed you? Truly, truly noticed you?”

I am afraid of the answer, so I just shake my head.

“It was during some lesson, I don’t remember what on, but it had a very genteel, handsome lecturer. Taryn was eager to answer the questions, offering all the perfect responses, and you were taking notes or some such. You two always tried thrice as hard as the rest - I think that’s why we hated you.”

I mutter, “You could have tried too. There’s not some quota of trying.”

He huffs out another quiet laugh. The neon lights of the bars across the street catch on his cheekbones, his brow. “Perhaps. But what if we tried just as hard but still got it wrong? But eventually she got one wrong and the lecturer - maybe he didn’t know who your father was, or maybe he didn’t care - he joined in with the rest of our mockery.”

The more he speaks the more I remember, even through my drunken haze. It was an awful day, and all I remember is being chastised by Oriana after classes. “What’s your point?”

“Well, dearest Jude, you wouldn’t stand for it. Though it didn’t affect you at all, you stood and yelled at this man, this respected member of the gentry, and told him that his questions weren’t fair anyway. It shocked him so, shocked the rest of us too. But you stood there, hands balled into fists, voice raw with the timbre that only mortals have, and I wished for nothing more than for you to stand up for me like that.”

I say nothing, stunned by his vivid recounting and confession. Suckled by a cat and raised in rags.

He takes my silence as condemnation and laughs, low and rueful. “A child’s wishes, isn’t it? But there I was, with a whole host of siblings and yet not one who would stand up for me. Balekin took me in, but only to cut me into a presentable shape for his own uses. Maybe he always hoped to groom a sibling to ensure the passage of the crown. I don’t know.”

He takes both of my cold hands in his and wraps his soft fingers around them. Part of me wants to recoil and hit him. The other part, the part that’s very drunk and very cold, just wants to hide against him. I know it’s nothing but my mind playing tricks on me, but I want it anyway.

“You consumed my thoughts in a way little else has. I dreamed of being the sort of person you would like, a person you would treat as family and love as such, so that you would come in with your sword and Madoc’s armies and crush all those that dared hurt me. But I knew I could never be someone you liked, so I became only what I knew I was.”

“That makes me no less cruel. Just not cruel to my family,” I reply, but my words are weak.

“The world has not treated you kind. It may not be just to act as you have, but it is understandable.” 

“But not excusable.”

I can hear the smile in his voice as he squeezes my hands. “Here you are, cowering in a cold park because you are so concerned.”

“Why are you telling me all this? Why are you here?”

His grip on my hands remains tight, as if he could keep me close to him through will alone. “There ought be little secrets between husband and wife, even in a marriage of politics - something we have both failed on, I wager.” His thumb rubs over the gem on my ring and he pauses, looking down. He murmurs, “You still wear it...”

I ignore that last bit. I don’t know why I still wear the thing. “That answers the first, not the second.”

“Can it not answer both?”

“Prick.”

He has to bite back yet another laugh at that, and I find myself almost laughing in return. “And that is the second. I have sorely missed your insults. It’s good, I’ve found, to keep one’s ego in check.”

“The only thing you’ve ever checked is yourself in a mirror.” He’s best known for his indulgences, for song’s sake. I can’t keep the grin from my face, though.

“Oh, you wound me,” He purrs, drawing back enough to favor me with a wide, self-satisfied smirk. “I’ve checked plenty of others as well. I am less Narcissus than Bacchus.”

“Nothing but a hedonist either way.” 

“Better that than a sour, dour ascetic.”

I snicker, surprising both of us at the sound. It’s hard to think straight, not when the heavy cloak and soft warmth is pulling me into the depths of my inebriated state. I fight to keep my eyes open, my limbs steady, but I find any words are harder to find and it’s far easier to just rest against Cardan. 

I’m vaguely aware of footsteps, a familiar voice, a waterfall of smooth white braids, a low reply in a dangerous tone, but it too fades out as I am pulled into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow! this was surprisingly hard to write! cardan is ... very tricky to write well, i think. very easy to get his character wrong, which i've probably done here in places, but oh well!
> 
> and yes i absolutely believe that cardan fell in love with jude bc he really, really, really wanted someone to come in and protect him like jude protects her family. this series does some really interesting things with commonly gendered stereotypes....
> 
> thank you so much for all of the comments and kudos!!! every single comment i get brightens my day and motivates me to write more! i have a lot left planned for this, so stick along!


	11. Kahlúa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cardan and the Bomb meet an ally of Jude's family with a lot to say and deal with the explosive repercussions.

 “How could you be so daft?!” It was hard to keep the bite from her voice, even as Cardan looked up at her with a look more like a cat laying in a sunbeam than a ruler caught out without a guard. She tried to not look at Jude, else her composure break completely. But as Cardan’s reply took longer and longer to arrive, she broke and stole a glance.

 

Jude’s cheek pressed against Cardan’s shoulder, her eyes squinched shut. The ridiculous cloak of the High King made both of them look very small, like a pair of children hiding underneath blankets for a sleepover. Sure, she had ran reconnaissance on Jude for the past few weeks, but it was different from seeing her so close. She looked…healthy. Healthier than the Bomb could ever remember seeing her. Her cheeks were flushed with drink and life, the dark circles that rested beneath her eyes banished. And here, resting against Cardan, the Bomb almost thought that things could be fixed between everyone again.

 

Almost.

 

“Is a king allowed no room off his leash, Lilliver?” She cringed back at the sound of her given name, given from him in a low drawl. He didn’t even bother to put in the edge of authority. 

 

“Sire, with all the respect that is due, it is precisely because you are King that this is so daft. I can see why you and Jude like each other – both of you are incapable of ever taking a guard.”

 

Cardan fell silent, his gaze sliding from her down to Jude. A look passed across his face, one she knew well. It was how he spent hours staring down into the ocean, when the fury faded.  “Having that be why she cares for me would imply she cared for me at all.”

 

How does one respond to their regent with a statement like that? She wanted to say that she understood, that she felt like she lost a piece of herself the more that Van drew away from her, that she was convinced love was nothing but wishing after a person you could never have and who didn’t want you.

 

But before she could organize her tangle of thoughts into something resembling a statement, she heard them.

 

It was the sound of boots against leaves, a soft shuffling easily covered by the sounds of the human city. But in the silence between her and the King, it felt as loud as the toll of a bell.

 

“Sire,” She hissed, hands already going to the small vials on her bandolier, “We’re to be joined-“

 

His arm tightened around Jude’s shoulder. He jerked his head away, a silent command – go.

 

But she wouldn’t abandon her king. She shot towards the tree Cardan and Jude rested against, her hands easily finding grips in the bark as she hoisted herself up, up, up.

 

Cardan didn’t move from his spot on the ground as figures filtered out of the trees around them, filling the spaces in-between the long shadows of the park.  A trio of figures, with one taking the lead. She was certain she could see neon glint off of metal at their hips. Armored and armed. A cold pit settled in her stomach. This wasn’t anything sent by Van.

 

“What brings you here, on such a fine night?” Cardan’s voice was as clear as a flute’s call and just as strong, ringing out across the dark. He still hadn’t moved from his spot on the ground, Jude prone against him. Is that why they were there? To take care of loose threads?

 

One of the figures stepped forward. As he spoke, she realized she recognized his voice - Diarmad. She had to know all of the palace guards as part of her work, and he was always a particularly hard one to bribe.  One of Madoc’s few potential protégés. This knowledge did not make her feel any better. It was impossible to make out any of his features through his cloak and the dark, but she was sure.

 

Diarmad’s voice was clear and strong as he said, “Is there a taste in the Greenbriar line for greengowning human seneschals?”

 

“I bid you remember who exactly you’re speaking to,” And though Cardan’s tone was light, the words were not. She could hear the easy smirk in his voice. “I must continue at least one of the traditions of my father – this seemed the easiest. Either way, good knight, do leave us be – nights ironside are dreadfully short, and while little surpasses a grand co-mingling under the stars, I’d like this night to myself.” The smirk dropped for a tone of command. An order from a king to his presumed vassal. But who was he speaking to?

 

The three fae didn’t move. The cold pit in her stomach turned into a chill up her bones. This wasn’t right. No one ought disobey a direct order from the ruler of Elfhame, even if they were solitary fae or of another court. At the least, it was bad politics.

 

She didn’t want to think of the worst.

 

She didn’t have much time to dwell on it – Diarmad spoke again. “Isn’t that romantic. A night under the stars, among the stink of iron and fumes, cozied up with your wife.”

 

The chill turns to ice. Her fingers hold tight to the small, explosive vials tucked into her bandolier. She could end this now. Blow it up. But at what cost?

 

Cardan laughs. “Are those jests still in season? Did my father ever marry Val Moren?” He spoke with clear confidence, but she didn't imagine the thin, frantic thread through his voice.

 

“No. But your father did not whimper and whine about wishing to be protected by the General’s daughter.”

 

With a start, she realized this man – and the rest of the phalanx - had heard everything. How? How did she miss him? How did she miss all of the rest of them? They had to have tracked Cardan out of Elfhame, but how? He was good at sly-footing, a natural, good enough that it took her a good while to notice his absence. She willed her body to stay still as she considered the awful implications – someone at court was feeding information to Madoc. And Diarmad moved through Madoc.

 

Cardan’s grip on Jude’s shoulder tightened. She didn't rouse, merely mumbled something low in her sleep. The lilt in his tone disappeared. “Who do you serve.”

 

“I serve the Queen.”

 

“Orlagh? We have made peace-“

 

“I serve the Queen that lured you from your court and laid you out before us as defenseless as a newborn lamb.”

 

Cardan stiffened, his whole body growing still. He stole a single glance at Jude, the girl who had so easily drawn him away from the safety of a land which obeyed him and into a dangerous realm. “She would never have you. This is not her doing.”

 

“When has she ever told you the truth?” He let out a laugh, a warm and rich sound entirely at odds with the scene before them. “What, do you think it sheer chance that had her break away from her family and run, desperate and alone, right into your awaiting arms? That she would accept you as the wretch you are out of nothing but some infantile affection?”

 

Cardan’s face shuttered. He rose, leaving Jude to slump back against the tree, lost underneath the heavy folds of Cardan's cloak. The Bomb felt sickened. Diarmad must speak true, for she never knew the Queen of Shadows to speak in anything but lies. And it was far too easy, their reunion. How did she not see it? Jude would have killed Cardan before she ever settled into his arms.

 

It was a trap. The entire thing. And like children wishing for a happy ending, they had played into it.

 

“You’ve said your piece,” Cardan said, his voice chipped obsidian. He stepped away from Jude, stalking towards Diarmad. “Now tell me, have you come here to do nothing but speak?”

 

“If an oak is diseased,” Diarmad said, and took a step closer to Cardan. His hand went to the scabbard at his side, a moment away from drawing his sword. “Then one does not treat it by cutting off branches and indulging the leftover leaves on sunshine and wine.”

 

Cardan sneered, “Your General should teach his men not to monologue. It's dreadful tactics.”

 

Before the Bomb could even grab her little grenades or throw a knife or do anything, Cardan’s fingers danced, a glimmer of orange sparking up and falling to the ground with his sleight of hand.

 

And then everything was gold and fire and light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IM BACK BINCHES
> 
> anyway life has been very busy for me these past few weeks so no time to write! i hope yall enjoy this chapter and how things are heating up (hue hue hue) ! diarmad was really given like ... 2 throw-away lines in the wicked king but i thought that he had potential......................potential for GREAT THINGS. 
> 
> thank you so much for the comments and kudos, as alway!


	12. Decaf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jude recovers from a violent night. Vivi fills in the details.

I awake to the feeling of something cold and wet against my forehead, an itchy pain across my face and a stifling heat and pressure on the rest of my body. I open my eyes, body still under the covers, only to find a blurry mess of colors above me. The damp presses against my forehead again and I jerk back.

“Hey!” Vivi’s voice filters through my haze of pain and confusion. I blink again. She’s leaning over me, brows drawn together and a washcloth in her hand. “Calm down, it’s alright. You’re home - well.” She casts a glance over her shoulder, the movement tense. “Not home, we’re above Moon in a Cup, Madoc wouldn’t risk-”

“What.” I croak out, still struggling to piece together what exactly is going on.

Vivi’s shoulders draw up in a wince. She looks back to me, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this apologetic towards someone besides Heather. “Look, don’t hate me, but I was really worried and Kaye and Roiben couldn’t find you either, and-”

“What.” I push myself into a sitting position and feel the odd pressure on my face. Bandages, and a lot of them, that stretchy cloth material so popular among athletes in the mortal realm. It must be why I struggled to see at first.

The blankets shift as Vivi sits on the edge of the bed, one foot resting on the ground as if she might need to flee quickly. “What do you remember about last night?”

I blink again and look at her. She looks harried, dark bruise-colored circles under her eyes from lack of sleep. My head pounds. A hangover headache. This is why I don’t drink.

“I was... out, I went out with you guys. And then I felt sick, so I went outside to hurl, and...” Just remembering that was like wading through tar. I furrow my brow, regretting it a half-second later as the motion aggravates whatever wound is under those bandages. “There were some guys who pissed me off, so I left, and...”

“Do you remember what the guys looked like?”

I shake my head. “They were just guys. Normal guys. Definitely human. Probably drunk. Mostly harmless.”

Vivi seems to deflate. “Well, that’s no lead.”

There was more, I’m sure of it, but I can’t remember what it is. I talked to someone else. I let my eyes wander the room as I struggle to think of who it was, but I must have blacked out the rest of the night. I’m left with only this throbbing headache, new burns and a sense of missing someone. I don’t know how Cardan managed to drink this much every night and function in the morning.

I pull my gaze away from the wallpapering of band posters along every exposed surface of the room (whoever’s room this is has an eclectic taste in music) and back to Vivi. I try to look stern. I probably just look tired. The headache won’t stop. “No lead? What happened? Why is Madoc here?”

“Right, uh...” Vivi glances around, probably for an escape. There isn’t one. “Right. Look, again, don’t hate me, but we didn’t notice you were gone for... a while, I guess. Time got away from us. You weren’t answering our calls or anything, so we went out looking for you. Kaye called Roiben and got him to help, along with some of the solitary fae they knew in the area.

We were out until, like, five in the goddamn morning and there was still nothing. I freaked out, okay? Maybe I could have just waited and trusted that you’d turn up but after the last time you just disappeared at a party, I thought-” Vivi sucks in a breath between clenched teeth. She won’t meet my gaze.

“Anyway. Madoc gave me an emergency-call sort of trinket at Taryn’s wedding. Just in case something happened. I used it and told him what had happened, and then he just showed up on Kaye’s doorstep with like, an entire squadron of guards.”

“So he found me?” I cut in, hating the idea of being saved by whatever had happened by Madoc.

“No. One of his new generals - Diarmad? Young kid? He was the one who found you. Said that you were tied up and left near a pond well-known for the kelpie that lives in it. And that this-” She reaches out and drops something in my hand, still avoiding my gaze. “Was found in the pile of your clothes on the shore.”

I look down at the small, cold object in my hand. An iridescent pearl, about as large as a gumball, with thin lines etched into the surface. An oak tree. The Greenbriar symbol.

A cold, sudden sickness runs through me, pulling me down to those months under the sea. Only now, the one person I was depending on for relief has thrown me to the sharks himself. A loose end finally meant to be cut. A kelpie to strip away the flesh from guilty bones. The pearl left to let my family know who did it. A warning. The memory of the water settles on me, heavy and thick, and I struggle to breathe. I don’t have any air under there, I have to get free, I have to-

“Hey!” Someone’s shaking my shoulders. Someone else is pulling in small, ragged breaths. I realize a moment later that it’s me. Vivi keeps her hands on my shoulders. “Breathe. It’s alright. I mean, it’s not, but we can just add it to the list of reasons we want him dead.”

I stare down at the pearl, the fear coalescing into something harder. I knew I wasn’t ever worth anything to the crown, not really. I was stupid for ever thinking that I could trust him. As stupid as Taryn, believing in love to cure all ills. Stupider, even, since she was playing a game of courtly manipulation I had never been privy to.

My feelings had led to me trussed up, stripped clean and laid out for a kelpie’s dinner.

Whatever small, ragged hope I had for a reunion burnt up in my anger. There would be no happy endings of queens and kings in fairyland. I was naive enough to think that I’d be safe in the mortal realm, but I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

The best defense is a good offense. It’s easier to conquer than retain.

“Jude.” Vivi squeezed my shoulders. “Everyone’s waiting downstairs for you. Are you okay?”

I nod. She helps me to my feet and we head downstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow it's been over two months since i updated! whoops! college sort of kicked my ass and then i forgot that i could write at all, like just ... figured that i couldn't? who knows. anyway, apologies for the uber long wait. i have learned my lesson about jumping head-first into a fic without writing an outline first. 
> 
> Queen of Nothing comes out in november, so i'd love to finish this up by then! if you're still following this, thanks for your patience!


	13. Espresso Shots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jude meets with friends old and new to discuss her claim on the throne.

The interior of Moon in a Cup, normally bright and loud and full of both mortal-favoring fae and eclectic humans, is unnaturally still. Streetlight filters through the drawn, patchwork curtains, but I’ve never seen it this dead even in the evening. I pause on the stairs, Vivi still supporting my weight, and take in the surreal view in front of me. For a moment I wonder if I’m still asleep, lost in some bizarre, pain-fueled fever dream.

 

Of course, the war table cobbled together in the middle of the room probably has something to do with that. All the small, mish-mash tables lovingly sourced from thrift stores and streetcorners take on a new, unfortunate life shoved together into a singular, massive one. A map is stretched over the surface, pieces of computer paper taped together and weighted down at the edges by ceramic cups. I wonder if the cups will leave coffee rings behind. 

 

The figures seated at the table don’t help either. Roiben and Kaye meet my gaze first, Roiben with the steady stare of a centuries-old glacier, unworried by the bloody passage of time, and Kaye’s beetle-black and worried. She gives a little wave, her ragged band t-shirt at odds with everyone else.

 

“Jude.” I stiffen at the familiar voice, a low, perfectly articulated rumble. I force myself to look Madoc in the eyes. 

 

He’s seated at the far end of the table, at the northmost edge of the map, and stands once he sees me. I haven’t seen him in months, not since before I was exiled, and I am surprised to see how alive he looks. His cat eyes gleam bright, brows drawn together in a severe frown. As a Redcap, his vitality has always depended on the blood he shed, and my stomach turns to think of how he’s sustaining himself now. I’ve only ever known him fettered to the royal crown, tamed by promises of later conquests that never materialized. Maybe I’ve spent my months worrying over the wrong players in Elfhame.

 

There’s another fae sitting to his right, hidden in the long shadows cast by the singular bare bulb hanging from the ceiling (It makes the place look raw, Kaye had explained when I had asked why it didn’t have a covering - I’m still not sure why raw is a good thing) a young man I struggle to recognize. He bears the same armor and insignia as Madoc, marking him as one of the knights. Diarmad, then - the man who found me. He looks relieved to see me, and I can’t figure out why. Maybe his head would be on Madoc’s chopping block if I died after he found me. 

 

Vivi ushers me down the stairs before I can get a better look, pushing a cup of hot tea into my hands. I find myself wedged between her and Kaye, sitting on a stool definitely meant for a higher table. Madoc sits, his frame unsuited for his thin wicker chair. I have a sudden vision of the chair cracking, sending him to the ground, and immediately feel childish. 

 

Kaye breaks the silence. “You’re not dead!” Her toothy grin is a balm to the father-shaped problem in front of me.

 

“Not yet,” Vivi adds, and squeezes my arm. I can’t remember the last time my older sister has ever acted this caring. 

 

“Are you yet recovered, Jude?” Madoc’s gaze hasn’t left me this entire time. He seems to be waiting for something.

 

I raise my head, trying to look as regal and put-together as possible, despite feeling like a wrung out washcloth. “I’ll be fine. What’s happening? Why are you still here?”

 

“Can I not inquire after the care of my daughter?”

 

“It’d be a new development.” I fight to keep the bite from my voice. In all my years in his household, he never once noticed the hundreds of tiny pains we went through every day, living as humans in a place with no interest in us. Oriana went to great cares to make sure we never disturbed him with pains like scraped knees and hurt feelings, so I learned to take care of me and sister both. 

 

I relish the hurt look that flickers across his features. I am sure he still thinks of himself as the perfect, long-suffering father forced to deal with disruptive, scheming daughters.

 

“We don’t have time for this,” Roiben says, giving both of us a cold and unamused look.

 

“A recap,” Kaye chirps, tapping down a list on her small, lined yellow pad of paper. “I’ve noticed unknown agents filtering into the cafe, presumably from the crown. Jude was kidnapped last night and left for dead, left by a token from, again, the crown, so basically we’re out of time.”

 

“We won’t speak for all of the solitary Fae,” Roiben added on, hands laced on the table in front of him. “But we can speak for a good many. The unrest in Elfhame is making them uneasy, more willing to cavort and run wild, knowing that the High King’s attention is caught at home.” He gave a pointed look to Madoc, the main reason why Cardan’s attention remained within Elfhame. “Regardless, the outer courts are stretched thin reining them in. Something may break soon.”

 

“But!”, Kaye adds on, edged pixy features blunted by her easy way of talking “The new laws regarding treatment of human laborers and entertainment has helped a ton with mixed-blood fae, which is, like, most of the ones outside the inner courts? There’s still the normal tension, but there’s been a trend towards a more, uh, reciprocal relationship.” 

 

The words wash over me, talk of factions both refreshing and reeling I served within the most inner circles of Elfhame’s court for almost a year, was raised among the gentry, but apparently I learned next to nothing about those that lay outside my gilded, saccharine walls. The solitary fae, the outer courts, fae like the Ghost - almost more human than fae - all factors in an equation I’m quickly losing sight of. The world seemed so small and easy to control when it was just me, Cardan, and Orlagh. 

 

And Madoc. He leans forward, a gauntleted finger resting on the small circle that marks Elfhame on the map. “Elfhame is torn within as well. It seems the nature of courts is to segment itself into factions.” He can’t keep a distasteful sneer from his voice. It’s no secret how he feels about the dalliances of courts. 

 

His tone slips into something colder, more clinical. “The loyalists hang tight to Cardan, believing in the power of the Greenbriar line. They’re hopeful for his future as a monarch, though none can argue that he’s had a rather sorry start of it. Mostly older fae, ones that just want everything to return to how it was. 

 

The imperialists are my forces. As I’ve am yet to be formally denounced by the throne, they exist more in the quiet margins among the loyalists. I hold the loyalty of the military, both within the court and without, and those that wish to usher in a new age of strength and stability.”

 

It’s all I can do not to roll my eyes. The worst part is, I know Madoc believes in his own words. 

 

He turns his gaze to me, words slow and precise. “And then there are the checkereds.”

 

I blink. That name doesn’t fit with the others, and there’s no court - or individual, for that matter - that flies a checkered banner. A checkered past, maybe? 

 

“Checkereds? Who are they?” 

 

Before Madoc can reply, Diarmad leans forward, his eyes alight with something I can’t identify. I’m struck by how young he looks, compared to Madoc at his side. The light casts a halo over his mane of golden hair, plaited back in the soldier’s manner. “The supporters of the true Queen.”

 

Queen. The word strikes me like a bolt to the heart, abrupt and painful. For a moment, I think it must be Orlagh he’s referring to - but Orlagh has never had many supporters in Elfhame, much less after Cardan’s show of dominion over her realm. 

 

And there is only one other Queen with a claim to Elfhame.

 

I pull in a shallow breath, praying that my erratic heartbeat doesn’t show on my face. I school my features into submission, trying to channel the cold distance I have always seen on the faces of elder military generals. 

 

Madoc silences Diarmad with a look and continues on. “The rumor of Jude’s legitimacy are turning into reality. There is a small, but intensely devoted faction who are intent on finding actual proof, and just as many eager to silence their claims.”

 

He turns his gaze to me. “It would be wise to move first, and make clear your claim before anyone else attempts to assume the mantle.”

 

There’s no point in trying to argue with Madoc over whether or not I have a claim at all. Between his informers within the court and the rumors surrounding my exile, I’m sure he was able to piece together the truth. 

 

“What happened to your planned heir?” I keep my voice level. I won’t be reduced to his daughter. 

 

Madoc narrows his eyes. “Oak is third in line and a child still. I see no point in waiting when there is another suitable contender.”

 

“Wait.” Vivi cuts in. “Cardan isn’t the best or anything, but I’ve heard he’s been decent as a ruler. Pushing Jude forward could spark a full-out war.” 

 

“When an oak is diseased,” Madoc says, tone low and grave. “You cannot expect to graft on new branches and have it flourish. The rot is deep in the roots of the Greenbriar line, resulting in an unkempt gentry more suited for revelry than rule, with not a care spared for the old laws and pacts. We must cut the rot out entirely and plant a new seed.” He inclines my head towards me. “And you, Jude, have an honorable claim to the throne.”

 

Silence stretches across the table like a too-taut drum. My mind reels. Years of fighting for Madoc’s approval, yet receiving it is more of a weight in my gut than joyful. My thoughts race. If Madoc pledged his forces and troops to my cause, I could easily find a way back into Elfhame. I could track down Grimsen and have him connive some way to let me return to the realm. I could operate through agents already in Elfhame without ever stepping foot. I could right all the wrongs I had ever experienced.

 

“As loathe as I am for warring courts once more,” Roiben says, breaking me out of my schemes, “The High General does speak true. I have seen first-hand the disastrous effects of a wild court. It is not the gentry that suffer, but all the fae beneath.”

 

I shake my head, forcing myself to be practical. “How would I hold the throne? As a human I’m barely tolerated, and as Seneschal I was a joke.”

 

“What?” Kaye’s tone is incredulous. “Jude, you’re not a joke. You’re a huge hit among the common fae -- you know, the ones with, like, at least one human ancestor, if not a bunch? Tons of us want more contact ironside than just stealing things or taking joyrides over here. You-” And she points a long, extra-jointed finger right at me. “-Are the perfect inbetween, a human raised among fae for fae that want to mingle with humans.”

 

I don’t have time to process this news - I’m actually liked by some of the fae? - before Madoc speaks again. “Our alliances have been built on unsteady ground in the past, daughter, but I offer a truce.” His slitted eyes bore into me. I don’t know what he finds there.

 

“You’ve never stood behind me wholly before. You have an heir of your own. Why should now be any different?”

 

“Because this time, I require nothing from you but a promise to remain on the throne if you win it. Our interests align. I want a just ruler of Elfhame, and I want my child on the throne. You can be both.”

 

“And Oak?” Vivi asks.

 

He keeps his gaze on me. “Why risk a soft leader when one I trust is already in line. You are still but a child, Jude, but you hold a great deal more promise than most.”

 

I know he cannot lie, but I search for the twisted words anyway. What is the trick? A promise to remain on the throne if I win it. What if  _ I’m _ not the one winning it? Madoc has never been particularly silver-tongued; he rarely spoke when the council met, content to let others carry the conversation. 

 

A wave of exhaustion crashes over me. I stand, swaying a bit, and announce, “I’ll need to sleep on it. And confer with the others.”

 

Kaye and Roiben both give me a concerned look, Kaye’s wide-eyed and frowny, Roiben’s barely more than a furrowed brow. 

 

Madoc nods. I doubt he’s surprised. It’d be stupid to agree to anything in my state now anyway.

 

As I turn to head upstairs I stumble, immediately aware of my new lack of depth perception. An arm catches me, helping me right myself so gracefully it feels more like a dance. 

 

I look up at Diarmad, the knight’s gaze odd in a way I can’t place. Before I can think of what it reminds me of, he asks, “May I escort you to the room?”

 

I’m half a second from refusing - I’m not a child, it’s not even my room - when another wave of nausea and exhaustion rushes through me. It’s all I can manage to just nod. I turn back from the war table and let Diarmad shoulder my weight upstairs. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hm! not a lot to say here, i think! i love writing dialogue!


End file.
